clouds and whose base was fixed on the earth, is the emblem of all systems which crumble to pieces as fast as they are built, if they are not founded on the steady basis of facts and experience. It is therefore on facts, that is, on the hitherto inexplicable folly and fantastical character of the various laws and customs, that I establish the proof of my opinion.

However stupid we suppose mankind, it is certain that enlightened by their own interest they have not without motives adopted the ridiculous customs we find established amongst some of them. The fantastical nature of these customs proceeds then from the diversity of the interests of different nations. In fact if they have always, though confusedly, understood by the word virtue the desire of the public happiness; if they have consequently given the name of honesty only to actions useful to the nation; and if the idea of utility has always been secretly connected with the idea of virtue, we may assert, that the most ridiculous, and even the most cruel customs, have always had, for their foundation, as I am going to show by some examples, either a real or apparent utility with respect to the public welfare.

Theft was permitted at Sparta; they only punished the awkwardness of the thief who was surprised: could anything be more absurd than this custom? However, if we call to mind the laws of Lycurgus, and the contempt shown for gold and silver in a country where the laws allowed the circulation of no other money than that of a kind of heavy brittle iron, it will appear that poultry and pulse were almost the only things that could be stolen. These thefts being always performed with address and frequently denied with firmness, they enured the Lacedemonians to a habit of courage and vigilance: the law then which allowed of stealing, might be very useful to that people, who had as much reason to be afraid of the treachery of the Ilotes, as of the ambition of the Persians; and could only oppose against the attempts of the one, and the innumerable armies of the other, the bulwark of these two virtues. It is therefore certain that theft, which is always prejudicial to a rich people, was of use to Sparta and therefore properly honoured.

In conformity with my reasonings, all the facts I have just cited concur to prove that the customs, even the most foolish and the most cruel, have always their source in the real or apparent utility of the public.

But it is said that these customs are not on this account the less odious or ridiculous. It is true. But it is only because we are ignorant of the motives of their establishment; and because these customs consecrated by antiquity and superstition subsisted here by negligence, or the weakness of government, long after the causes of their establishment were removed.

When France was in a manner only a vast forest, who doubts that those donations of uncultivated lands made to the religious orders ought then to have been permitted: and that the prolongation of such a permission would not now be as absurd and injurious to the state, as it might be wise and useful when France was uncultivated? All the customs that procure only transient advantages are like scaffolds that should be pulled down when the palaces are raised.

The interest of states like all human things is subject to a thousand revolutions. The same laws and the same customs become successively useful and prejudicial to the same people; whence I conclude that these laws ought by turns to be adopted and rejected, and that the same actions ought successively to bear the names of virtuous and vicious; a proposition that cannot be denied without confessing that there are actions, which at one and the same time are virtuous and prejudicial to the state, and consequently without sapping the foundations of all government and all society.

The general conclusion of all I have just said is, that virtue is only the desire of the happiness of mankind; and that probity, which I consider as virtue put into action, is among all people, and in all the various governments of the world, only the habit of performing actions useful to our country.

WILLIAM PALEY

(1743-1805)

THE PRINCIPLES OF MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY *

BOOK 1. CHAPTER VII

VIRTUE is, "the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness."

According to which definition, "the good of mankind" is the subject, the "will of God" the rule, and "everlasting happiness" the motive of human virtue.

BOOK II. CHAPTER 1

Why am I obliged to keep my word? Because it is right, says one. Because it is agreeable to the fitness of things, says another. Because it is conformable to reason and nature, says a third. - Because it is conformable to truth, says a fourth. Because it promotes the public good, says a fifth. Because it is required by the will of God, concludes a sixth.

Upon which different accounts, two things are observable: FIRST, that they all ultimately coincide.

The fitness of things means their fitness to produce happiness: the nature of things means that actual constitution of the world, by which some things, as such and such actions, for example, produce happiness, and others misery: reason is the principle, by which we discover or judge of this constitution: truth is this judgment expressed or drawn out into propositions. So that it necessarily comes to pass, that what promotes the public happiness, or happiness upon the whole, is agreeable to the fitness of things, to nature, to reason, and to truth; and such (as *First edition, London, 1785.

will appear by and by) is the divine character, that what promotes the general happiness is required by the will of God; and what has all the above properties must needs be right: for right means no more than conformity to the rule we go by, whatever that rule be. And this is the reason that moralists, from whatever different principles they set out, commonly meet in their conclusions; that is, they enjoin the same conduct, prescribe the same rules of duty, and, with a few exceptions, deliver upon dubious cases the same determinations.

SECONDLY, it is to be observed, that these answers all leave the matter short; for the enquirer may turn round upon his teacher with a second question, in which he will expect to be satisfied, namely, why am I obliged to do what is right; to act agreeably to the fitness of things; to conform to reason, nature, or truth; to promote the public good, or to obey the will of God?

The proper method of conducting the enquiry is, FIRST, to examine what we mean, when we say a man is obliged to do any thing, and THEN to shew why he is obliged to do the thing which we have proposed as an example, namely, "to keep his word."

CHAPTER II

A man is said to be obliged, "when he is urged by a violent motive resulting from the command of another."

I. "The motive must be violent." If a person, who has done me some little service, or has a small place in his disposal, ask me for my vote upon some occasion, I may possibly give it him, from a motive of gratitude or expectation; but I should hardly say, that I was obliged to give it him, because the inducement does not rise high enough. Whereas, if a father or a master, any great benefactor, or one on whom my fortune depends, require my vote, I give it him of course; and my answer to all who ask me why I voted so and so, is, that my father or my master obliged me; that I had received so many favours from, or had so great a dependence upon such a one, that I was obliged to vote as he directed me.

SECONDLY, "It must result from the command of another." Offer a man a gratuity for doing any thing, for seizing, for example, an offender, he is not obliged by your offer to do it; nor would he say he is; though he may be induced, persuaded, prevailed upon, tempted. If a magistrate, or the man's immediate superior command it, he considers himself as obliged to comply, though possibly he would lose less by a refusal in this case, than in the former. I will not undertake to say that the words obligation and obliged are used uniformly in this sense, or always with this distinction; nor is it possible to tie down popular phrases to any constant signification: but, wherever the motive is violent enough, and coupled with the idea of command, authority, law, or the will of a superior, there, I take it, we always reckon ourselves to be obliged.

And from this account of obligation it follows, that we can be obliged to nothing, but what we ourselves are to gain or lose something by; for nothing else can be a "violent motive" to us. As we should not be obliged to obey the laws, or the magistrate, unless rewards or punishments, pleasure or pain, somehow or other depended upon our obedience; so neither should we, without the same reason, be obliged to do what is right, to practise virtue, or to obey the commands of God.

CHAPTER III

Let it be remembered, that to be obliged, "is to be urged by a violent motive, resulting from the command of another." And then let it be asked, Why am I obliged to keep my word? and the answer will be, because I am" urged to do so by a violent motive," (namely, the expectation of being after this life rewarded, if I do, or punished for it, if I do not) "resulting from the command of another," (namely, of God). This solution goes to the bottom of the subject, as no farther question can reasonably be asked.

Therefore, private happiness is our motive, and the will of God our rule.